


Eating Bitterness

by PunkHazard



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-10 12:00:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14736596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunkHazard/pseuds/PunkHazard
Summary: Rise; Shine.





	Eating Bitterness

Bile surges up her throat but Mei chokes it back, squeezing her eyes shut to block out the illuminated names in front of her, the flashing MALFUNCTION alerts. An hour hadn't even seemed to pass since she last saw Adams, backing into his capsule with a cheeky wave. Arrhenius wrapping her scarf over her nose as she settled in. Opara's boisterous, reassuring grin, the way Torres bounced on the balls of his feet before undertaking any kind of expedition into the cold. MacReady's exasperated eyeroll. 

Bitter sedative still lingers in her mouth, tears sneaking in at the corners. Intermittent bursts of red light up the insides of her eyelids so Mei buries her face in her arms. In the moment she's acutely aware of the cold at her back, the soft material of her slippers, the ecopoint's slow return to functioning temperature. In the distance, wind howls through jagged, broken windows; the whistling kettle she'd left in the kitchen falls silent. Snowball nudges her elbow and she holds it close.

_Nine years._

Mei sits for what seems like nine more, until her nose is raw from rubbing and her eyes are nearly swollen shut. Her ribs ache from exhaustion, chest seizing every time she has to swallow another wave of despair. There's an acrid taste in her mouth; the thought of nine-year-old rations tossing around in her stomach is what finally drives her to her feet and into the workshop.

Snowball gets her through the next fourteen hours, bringing her hot water, vitamin supplements and a bag of freeze-dried mashed potatoes to reconstitute as she builds the cryo-repair gun (name TBD). It's MacReady's notes on conductivity that give her the chops to dismantle and reassemble Arrhenius's hair dryer; the memory of Torres and Captain Opara's work on the cryo-pods that gives her the formula to create ice from a container of room-temperature water. Adams' tools to assemble the device.

Fear is sour; it sits at the back of her teeth and lingers there long after she receives Winston's message. The world needs the data, needs her to deliver it. Overwatch has disbanded. 

No one is coming.

* * *

Her first night on the tundra is long and sleepless. Snowball had shored up enough solar power throughout the day to radiate a fair amount of heat now, just enough to warm the tiny pyramid tent she'd pitched as the sun dropped below the horizon. Mei bundles it close inside her sleeping bag, using the initial burst of warmth to hold temperature. Even through the tent's material, she can hear the wind howl across the Antarctic, each creak and snap of ice around and beneath her shelter. 

She turns off Snowball's heater function, setting it to kick back in an hour later. From her bag, she takes a protein bar and a single-serving packet of jerky. The granola is bland in this weather, frozen and hard. The jerky is salty and not much else but hard to chew, its fibers wedging between her teeth. 

Mei keeps her hands clenched, held close to her body. Her fingers ache from the cold but she reminds herself that as long as she can still feel them, frostbite hasn't set in. There's only one small lantern in her tent, drawing electricity from Snowball's powerbank. She turns it off once the tent has been zipped and her belongings are arranged, lying back to pull the hood of her sleeping bag over her head.

_Opara, Adams, Arrhenius, Torres, MacReady._

"Snowball?" 

The night is cold and dark, her position desperately precarious. She will need to conserve electricity to last the night, stretch her food to sustain her walk to the nearest outpost. Heating takes a large amount of power, but playback significantly less.

"Could you play," she whispers to the little robot in her arms, "'Recall'?"

Mei listens to Winston's message until morning, intermittent bursts of static and all.

* * *

Fifteen miles isn't much but over the frozen expanse of the southern ice cap, it takes six days to clear. Ten kilograms of supplies dwindles to four, mostly consisting of her tent and other camping gear. The rations on base had barely lasted: one day for six scientists at Ecopoint: Antarctica stretched to almost a week for one lone climatologist. At least in cryostasis, her body hadn't had a chance to atrophy. 

Mei finishes her last bag of freeze-dried chicken and rice on the sixth day, when the silhouette of the the nearest outpost, an ice testing facility built four years ago, appears on the horizon. She makes camp at dusk, only retreating into the tent when the sky grows too dark to see it any longer. Snowball tunes into the outpost's radio frequency, one she'd been following since her trek began. The little robot is well-equipped with communication capabilities, especially at this range, but there's comfort in solitude, in time to mourn the family she'd lost at the Ecopoint.

The thought of explaining her situation to strangers leaves a tight knot in her chest, and she rehearses out loud in the final stretch.

* * *

"Hi!" she says as practiced, pushing the door open, "I'm Zhou Mei-Ling. May I use your communicator?"

There are two scientists at work, one so shocked to see someone stumble out of the cold that she drops a flask and the other with just enough presence of mind to make space at the control panel. Winston nearly chokes on the lid of a peanut butter jar when she finally reaches him on the emergency channel, and they arrange a supply drop, transportation. Nine years worth of data is too much to transfer over the shaky satellite link at this outpost, and in the meantime, she can only wait.

Jamil, the scientist who'd dropped her flask, bundles Mei into a blanket as the call ends. The other, Ishola, brews a fresh pot of coffee, filling the room with its heady, bitter scent. Jamil pours her the first cup and Snowball brings it to her, supplying a small pile of creamer and sugar packets to go with it.

Steam wafts up to her cheeks the same moment her eyes begin to sting. The mug is hot in her hands, warming her palms. Mei takes a modest sip and lets the coffee spread over her tongue-- rich and fragrant, filling her nose with the scent of lovingly roasted Kọfị Aromo beans. Nothing at all like the tins of instant powder at the Ecopoint.

The room blurs and her glasses fog, tears leaving cool trails down her face to land on her wrist. She takes another sip.

It's sweet.

**Author's Note:**

> it's 4am, i'll probably come back to edit in the morning LMAO


End file.
